The servers that provide Challenges in DRIVECLUB are being replaced and upgraded. This will bring bigger, better challenges and improve server performance across the game as we continue to work to make the PlayStation Plus Edition of DRIVECLUB possible.

After the update and new servers go live, your Challenges and Event History will start afresh, so please schedule your challenges to end before 10am UK time on Monday June, 1st. You can continue to play and create Challenges before the update but please understand that any events that are still active during the update will not continue on the new servers.

Full details for Game Update 1.16 (coming Monday 1st June):

* Challenges will be expanded to support an unlimited number of participants.

* Challenge notifications will be integrated into the Social Hub activity feed for easy access.

* The Challenge Menu will have a new interface to make it easier to join Challenges.

* Evolution Studios Challenges will be added to the Challenge Menu for direct and easy access.

* Invitation options will be optimised to focus on active players and reduce challenge notification spam.

* More of our favourite ?#?PS4share? pictures created by the community will be added to the Menus.

* Significant technical improvements will be made to enhance server connectivity and prepare for the PlayStation Plus Edition.

The prE3-show (see what I did there?) has kicked off in style with Microsoft leading the charge. Phil Spencer opened the show with class by including Nintendo and Sony in his opening speech about the oncoming storm that is the E3 show floor, binding us all together as brothers in this wonderful hobby we all share with one another. The focus was decidedly on games, proving that, once again, Microsoft is listening and learning. What follows are the top five moments that wowed us during the Microsoft presentation for E3 2014.

5.) Conker made his first, fresh appearance in 10 years!
It, unfortunately, wasn’t at the helm of a brand new game in his legacy, but instead as an inclusion for the humongous, player creation engine that is Project Spark. But whatever, I’ll take what I can get. Is this an allusion to another Conker game in development? I wouldn’t put any eggs in that basket just yet, but even at face value, this is proof that Microsoft hasn’t forgotten about the foulmouthed fan favorite, and hopefully we’ll see him more and more as the current generation unfolds.

4.) Super Ultra Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX +Alpha
Available right freaking now, as you read this, Super Ultra Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX +Alpha is 2014’s Blood Dragon. The over the top camp, remarkable humor, and… did I see a Power Charged Falcon costume in there?! The fan-service saturates every inch of this DLC package! People who already own this game will be chomping at the bit to grab this content, while others will be chomping at the bit to grab the game, and THEN grab this content.

3.) Crackdown
Crackdown, the open world game that has you playing the part of the police in an effort to clean up the streets, Saint’s Row style, is back, baby! Not much in the way of gameplay is seen in the trailer, but with two previous entrants in the series, it’s hardly necessary. I’m sure there will be visual updates, and new mechanics, but so long as they accompany all of the conventions of its predecessors, we’ll all be happy to get our hands on this next installment.

2.) Scalebound, Kamiya’s (Platinum Games’) new game, is XB1 Exclusive
This, right here, is my system seller. This is why I’ll be picking up an XBOX One. All we have is a trailer, but from what’s been given to us, it looks like a fast, frenetic Monster Hunter type game that allows you to steal aspects of the beasts you hunt simply by making contact. Whatever the case, this is going to be huge, hilarious, and chock full of over the top action.

1.) Ken Lobb prematurely wins E3 with Phantom Dust
The rumors flew fast and furious before the show began, but what was considered to be one of the most unlikely ended up ringing true. The incredible vision of Phantom Dust will be reiterated upon for the current console generation, and those of us who remember the XBOX original couldn’t be more excited. Pardon me while I collect my jaw off the floor.

Sony’s up next, and unlike last year, there is much to surmount this time around, including items not mentioned on this list (Halo 5 among them). Stay tuned to ++GG for updates as they occur!

ASTEBREED, the newest game from developer Edelweiss, made a strong showing at PAX East this week at the Indie MEGAcade. Taking the famous and beloved Lords of Thunder aesthetic and mechanics, while freshening up the affair with its own tricks and systems, the game aims to please with gorgeous visuals, and impeccable control.

It also aims to frustrate, in typical bullet hell fashion, but at least you know what you’re getting in to!

It is now, in the waning days of the previous console generation, that the straggling releases condemned to debut at the end of the line have the greatest chance of being completely overlooked. The causes for this are wide and varied, from the notoriously short print runs of the final few Saturn games, to the necessary under-stocking of retail outlets making way for the new, shiny console hotnesses. And this is a true shame, for it’s at the end of the console’s life cycle that developers are at the most familiar with the hardware and its capabilities.

No piece of hardware taught us this lesson better than the PS2; and no other developers had a better handle on the end-of-life window than ATLUS, NISA, and Vanillware. Odinsphere, Grim Grimoire, and *deep breath* Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon, among others, proved the savvy with which a swan song can be trumpeted… and the frustrating lack of frequency with which you’d find these on store shelves.

Things will be no different this time around, and I caution you to look up from your Destinies and Titanfalls every once in a while, lest you miss out on some of the more satisfying, and most difficult to find games of the PS3’s generation. Witch and the Hundred Knight, obviously, numbers among them.

Admittedly, Witch and the Hundred Knight (hereafter referred to as WHK) isn’t going to be for everyone, but what NISA title is? The player that this will appeal to is the same guy or gal who loves grinding to impossible power levels, searching every nook and cranny for each possible weapon, and managing stats that quickly get out of hand… so, you know, the typical NISA fan.

Regarding gameplay, it’s an extremely simple affair. The camera is fixed above the battlefield, and you run your little avatar around while cutting into your enemies with sword, axe, hammer, and spear… and since your master, Metallia the witch, is as disgruntled as witches come, everyone is your enemy. The experience is not unlike the Legend of Zelda at its core, but diversity can be found in equipping your knight with a wide variety of weapons and items.

You can have several weapons equipped at one time, and as you push the attack button, you’ll swing with each weapon in turn. Each weapon has its own strengths – spears are great for crowd control, while hammers are single-target massive damage dealers – so you can craft a combo that keeps you safe by pushing out groups of enemies, smashes singular foes, such as bosses, or you can take a more eclectic approach, equipping one weapon of each type for maximum chaos.

WHK looks like a PS2 game, but in that very specific, end of a generation way, sort of forcing it to keep company with the aforementioned Odinsphere (etc.), and evoking a remarkably tangible sense of PS2-ness. I’m sure it wasn’t done purposely (probably due to a smaller budget), but the dev team really made the game shine in an incredibly nostalgic manner.

Regarding the plot, I was specifically asked to avoid mentioning much, as the game is story driven, and spoilers are a bad time for everyone. What I will say is that, after some simple establishment in the tutorial level, the entire game revolves around your acquisition of land, and the press ganging of of villagers to your cause. Metallia is a swamp witch, and so she wants the world to be half-submerged beneath the foul, fetid muck of her beloved fen, and it’s your job to ensure that happens. Along the way you’ll roughhouse with the various denizens of the different areas you transform in order to set them straight about Metallia, as well as to grab an invaluable stock of items.

And then there’s the GigaCal system. The game doesn’t really do too good of a job explaining precisely what a “GigaCal” is in relation to the game world, and subsequently, all I ever saw it as was an unnecessary timer that forces you to return home, completely crushing any momentum you may have built up, and ruining the flow of an otherwise enjoyable game. There are ways to add time to this timer, but not perpetually. It wasn’t so bad that I put the game down, but it definitely dampened my experience.

Verdict – 7.0 (Good): Thankfully, WHK won’t be hard to find due to its presence on PSN as a result of NISA’s commitment to digital distribution, but it will deliver on every other aspect of an era ending gem. It’s quirky, funny, irreverent, and solidly grounded on unshakably classic design and mechanics… if only the GigaCal restrictions weren’t in place, forcing unnecessary return trips, and padding out the games length unnecessarily. Also, some of those cut-scenes can be excessive.

Shaquille O’Neal, apparently, wants to make another video game starring himself, based on a trash franchise from the Genesis era and… that, uh… that trailer looks really good, actually. REALLY good. Kind of like Afro Samurai with a dash of Saturday Morning thrown in.

Huh. Maybe I’ll be following this one. I don’t at all know what to expect, but I’ll give the big lug a chance to explain himself. He even admits to the flaws of the past in the trailer, assuring us it’ll be done right this time. Though I don’t know what “right” means with regard to a former basketball star headlining his own video game… at the very least, this journey should be interesting!

Check the trailer below! Then click through for the Indiegogo campaign!

I had no idea what I was getting into with AquaPazza, I’ll admit it. What I saw was a new anime fighting game from Examu (Arcana Hearts) and ATLUS. The last time I saw a new anime fighting game from ATLUS, it was Persona 4: Arena, and I absolutely loved it (and while I’ve never played Arcana Hearts, I do try to stay up to date with the international tournament scene, and so I’m not strictly unfamiliar with it). What it did was take the characters from the JRPG Persona 4 (and a couple from 3), and placed them in a setting wherein they smash each others faces in with fist and foot. Completely out of left field? Yes. Oddball eccentricity abounds? For certain. But once the game dropped, and the dust settled, it turned out ATLUS knew what they were doing. In fact, the game went on to receive critical high praise and secure itself a place among the high profile annual tournament that is EVO, even after games like BlazBlue had been removed from the official roster.

Here, now, we have AquaPazza. A game coming from similar circumstance. In fact, it’s even more obscure due to the nature of the borrowed characters. Each and every one of them comes from a series of “adult” visual novels or “adult” RPGs that never saw a release outside of Japan. Yeah, I said visual novels. The premise is absurd, and the source material is all but arcane, but that doesn’t mean the end result isn’t enjoyable. In fact, you’ll have a great deal of fun with this one.

The story begins with a shadowed character mixing what she thinks is a love potion, but it ends up being “AquaPazza,” a potion that let’s her control people’s minds. And with all of the worlds merging, like you do (I don’t really know why this happens… I think it’s a part of the ritual to make the potion… I think), she’ll have access to all of the hot guys floating around, because she can brain-jack them. Seriously. That’s her motivation. World domination is only a means to an end. That end being herself being fawned over by all the hot guys. ALL OF THEM! I suppose, given the properties that these characters hail from, it makes perfect sense, but I found it absurd.

Funny enough, I didn’t find it absurd enough that it wasn’t enjoyable, but… OK, look. I’m going to be clear, here. “The story doesn’t matter in fighting games” is the typical response to this sort of concern, but I only agree limitedly. You see, the story isn’t important in a fighting game… until it is. And I find there are, largely, two different ways in which it can be important. The first way is when a game like MK9 shows up and integrates the plot so heavily into the game, that each character has their own events to deal with and arcs to follow through on, while maintaining a critically excellent level of writing and a cohesive meta-plot. The second is when a fighting game ATTEMPTS to do this, but fails miserably, all while taking the yarn it’s spinning seriously. Even if it’s a “joke” plot, as it seems to be in AquaPazza. It’s jarring, and borderline insulting, but for some reason, after hours (literally hours; the characters have previous relationships that they bring along with them, and they speak like I’ve played their respective series, cutting out nearly all exposition that would put me on even footing) of putting up with it, it somehow ended up grating less and less. Not a ringing endorsement, for sure, but not necessarily completely condemning, either.

The game, for all of it’s ambiguity and plot perniciousness, looks good. The character select portraits are full screen, and are animated to look like they’ve jumped out of an anime. I was shocked to see just how fluid they were. The in-bout animations are just as clean and watery (that’s two aqua puns in as many sentences, folks!), and the backgrounds are full of motion, as well. Each one of the backgrounds also seems to be set in certain specific universes, just like the characters. White Album, To Heart, Tears to Tiara, all names I’m unfamiliar with, but all settings which I can only imagine the stages do justice. White Album is my favorite – you duke it out in front of three Jumbo-trons (one with fully animated accompaniment clips for the concert going on at center stage, and the other two display your current fighting match a la King of Fighters XIII), all while being serenaded by J-POP idols.

The game clocks in at an airy $30, and for that low price you get a TON of game. There’s a story mode, where-in you select a character and a side-kick (from two separate rosters), play through to the end, and receive an ending. Then, you can take that same character and play in “Another Story” mode, with a completely different plot and outcome. You can only play Another Story mode with the characters you beat Story mode with, but let’s be honest, you were going to do that anyway. This extends the play time in a single player capacity by double what you’d normally expect, and for all the hemming and hawing I did about the poorly communicated plot, Another Story is far better at getting its point across. For as much as the regular Story mode confused me, Another Story held my attention for the duration. And this is all in addition to the typical Versus, Score Attack, Arcade, and Training modes that come standard in any modern fighter that isn’t called Killer Instinct… ZINGER (I kid, I love KI)!

Concerning gameplay, I can see why they went in this direction. The game has a very simplified interface, with special moves for all characters being either fireball motions, Dragon Punches, or charge moves, with very little deviation (such as in the case of certain super moves). That’s it. It makes the trial and error of new character selection as painless as possible, and since the target audience of this particular fighter is going to be fans of anime and visual novel imports – people who might not be privy to the rigors of tournament level fighting systems – it makes sense. And it’s executed with excellence. I’ll admit, going in, I thought I was going to be disappointed with the simple button layout (light attack, medium attack, heavy attack, and an assist button… it’s almost like the controls for a typical hack n’ slash, not a fighting game), but after actually playing, I was able to see how good it felt, and how genius a decision this layout is. I had FUN while playing it, and I was able to disregard all of my preconceived notions about how fighting games “should” be. No small feat. It was also no surprise to discover that AquaPazza has been featured in Japan’s Tougeki: Super Battle Opera tournaments two years and running. It’s a technically sound game.

AquaPazza has 26 characters, total, but not all are playable. Separate rosters exist for the 13 playable characters, and the 13 side-kicks, or assist, characters. Each main combatant has their own play-style and comfort zone (long, mid, or close range), and each side-kick has a small suit of moves to aid you in combat by crossing-up, extending combos, or applying unexpected pressure.

The game’s systems are decent, if all done before. There’s a version of Just Defending, and tag assists; normal combos, and super moves that depend on accumulating meter. There’s even a take on Garou’s T.O.P. mode (you can’t select its placement) that allows for super-flashy Splash Arts that can turn the tide of battle in your favor, should you take a proper whooping out of the gate, and are absolutely gorgeous. Whether or not these mechanics are borrowed is a non-issue, as all of them work in conjunction with one another and are finely tuned to make the game a joy to play. But that’s not all. The game does, in fact, have a defining mechanic in the Active Emotion System. The AES is a way to encourage players to actually engage one another by rewarding aggression, and punishing turtling. Aggressive players are given a 10% damage bonus to all attacks when you fill the AES meter (which is done by simply pursuing and attacking your opponent), while chronically defensive players are guaranteed to receive a Guard Break. The heads-up visual effects are easy to spot and exploit (your character receives a pink aura to signify the damage bonus, and a blue aura to let you know you’ll be Guard Broken if you don’t attack your opponent). Personally, I love the mechanic. It forces engagement, and that’s a very good thing.

The last point I’ll make is for the game’s sound. It is impressive, with all characters being fully voice acted (in Japanese… no subbing, here, unfortunately; or, maybe, fortunately), and the BGM selections for each level popping with fighting game characteristic pep (especially for the White Album level).

Verdict: +Good (8.0/10) - There are more technically advanced fighters, and fighters with better stories. There are more colorful anime fighters, and fighters with long standing histories outside of Japan. But what there isn’t, is another game polished to this level for as little as ATLUS is asking for for AquaPazza. If you enjoy fighting games, quirky Japanese character design, or getting a solid bang for your gaming buck, this one’s a no-brainer.

In order to describe King Arthur’s Gold, I find myself having to resort to comparison for the simple fact that it incorporates so many concepts from other genres, it’s impossible not to. Worms, Fat Princess, Team Fortress 2, Terraria… it’s no wonder the game defies conventional categorization.

It is, again, no wonder that the vast majority of games I participated in were grand exorcises in a tumultuous dumbfounding.

Officially, King Arthur’s Gold is a “2D Action Multiplayer Wargame,” but that doesn’t do it justice. It’s a class-based, resource gathering, team-based, real-time war game, and even after this description, I feel like I’ve left something out. Let me do this by the numbers, just to make I don’t forget anything.

It’s class based. There are three classes in the game, available to you at any time (so long as you’re in the proper room to change): the Knight, the Archer, and the Builder. The Knight is the tank of the trio. He has the most health of all the classes, and he’s armor-clad, wielding a sword and shield. The shield can be used to block attacks, and as a step for other characters if you angle it above your head. It can also help you get distance when you jump, by acting as a glider. Knights can also throw bombs to clear pathways, and destroy your enemies (if they’re silly enough to get caught in the blast), as well as use a variety of attacks with their sword. The archer has the lowest health of the three, and can, TA-DA, shoot arrows. They have a grappling hook to help them with finding that perfect sniper’s nest high above the battlefield, and they have a wide variety of arrow types to use, as needed. Then there’s my personal favorite, the Builder (the class I also happen to play in Fat Princess… which I still play, because it’s incredibly fun). The Builder is the backbone of any army, capable of building drawbridges, gates, towers, ladders, and many other structures out of a wide variety of blocks for which he must gather resources. Mining stone and wood are a must, and resource gathering makes you a high priority target…

Honestly, each class has such a well defined skill set, and though there are only three, all of the bases have been covered. I half expected all of the classes to play similarly with the exception of weapons, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. You can find your class niche, and set about obtaining victory via protecting your comrades, sniping the enemy, or building up your defenses and collecting resources. Putting it all on a beautifully pixelated 2D plane is icing. The game is literally Worms meets Team Fortress 2, and I haven’t even described the modes of play, yet! The minds that came up with this game are brilliant.

As I just mentioned, the game looks beautiful with it’s layered backdrops, and pixel composition, but I’m a sucker for pixels. Especially in this day an age, when it’s an artistic choice, and not a necessity borne out of poor tech. The layered, scrolling backdrops are better than anything an SNES could ever pump out, and the detail with which all of the teensy people are composed seem to have been painstakingly placed. There’s not much else to say about it, for as much as I love the look, it’s a simple one. But it’s certainly charming (especially when the gallons of blood begin to flow), and skillfully worked.

The game modes are diverse, varied, and copious. Single player gets a basic tutorial for controls and movement (all done with the keyboard; though there is no controller support, the game is no worse for it), and then one for each of two modes: Capture the Flag, and Take the Halls. Capture the flag is exactly what you’d expect it to be – each team has a flag, and the other team is trying to grab it and run it back to their base for points. Take the Halls is a capture point mode wherein halls (as in stone halls) are scattered throughout the zone, and both teams are trying to capture them all for a victory. Both of these modes are multiplayer. Getting back to single player stuff, there’s Challenge mode, which sets several tasks before you to be accomplished within a set time limit; Save the Princess, which is a small campaign mode where you must (*AHEM!*) save the princess from an evil Necromancer and his scores of baddies; and then there’s Sandbox mode, which allows you to just do whatever the heck you want. This is the mode to go nuts in with your builder.

Multiplayer has the aforementioned Capture the Flag and Take the Halls modes, but it pours on the content by adding a Team Deathmatch mode which is, like capture the flag, exactly as you’d expect it (two teams racing for the highest kill count), and its own Challenge mode, allowing for cooperative problem solving in a set amount of time. Add to this the fact that the game supports OVER 32 players, and you can begin to estimate exactly how much bang for your buck you’ll be getting out of this one.

All I’ve done here is lay out the mechanics of the game, and that’s honestly because I’ve no idea how to relate the confusing, quick, dirty, confounding nature of the actual gameplay experience. Often I stared at the computer screen, wide eyed, doing nothing but getting spawn killed, and just taking the chaos in. Once I found my groove, it was still an all-over-the-place experience that certainly won’t be for everyone; BUT… if it’s for you, then this game is definitely for you. Grab a group of friends, plunk your Hamilton down on the Steam counter, and step up the the craziest experience you’ll have in a long time. AND it’s in 2D… brilliant!

Verdict: 8.5 (+Good) – “Madcap” doesn’t even begin to describe the tone set by this game. It’s got an extremely steep learning curve, and most modes tend to devolve into so much chaos, but once you get the hang of it, there’s a lot of fun to be had; while short games mean you won’t be lost in a sea of dead comrades and confusion for longer than necessary. If you like Fat Princess, Worms, Team Fortress, or any number of other class based games focusing on mass destruction, you can’t go wrong with KAG. The $9.99 price tag only serves to reinforce its “must buy” status. Have at thee!

The frequency with which I play my consoles has become more and more dependent on my reviews schedule. Recently, the XBOX has taken a backseat to all of the PS3 titles I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing. As I’ve been on the PS3 a lot more recently, it’ll come as no surprise that I have taken to putzing around the PlayStation Store. Every week I check out the “What’s New” section, and to make a short story even shorter, I ended up watching the trailer for Stick it to the Man about a week ago. I was smitten. Everything from the art style, to the Kenny Rodgers theme communicated the feel of this setting and the oddball, characters mired in their oddball lives so effectively, I had to know more.

What I discovered was a charming game of match and memory, stitched together via platforming and jump puzzles.

Ray doesn’t lead what you’d call a “privileged” life. He works a dead-end job testing hardhats (which involves a great deal of falling detritus making contact with his often under-protected noggin), it typically rains while on his way home from work, and in order to climb to his apartment he’s got to undertake a ton of needless jumping, which he references multiple times (oh, the perils of living in a 2D universe).

Day in and day out, this is his struggle. Thankfully, his devoted love Arlene makes the drudgery of his existence bearable. Drudgery that would have continued were it not for the fateful (and foreshadowed) knock on the bean that changed his life… FOREVER! For as he traipsed home from work (a man as hapless as Ray could only ever find locomotion in such a verb as “traipse”), the military transport plane overhead was struck in the midst of the storm (you know, the one that waits for Ray to get off work), losing its cargo, sending it careening toward and eventually colliding with our recently imperiled protagonist.

BONK! One comatose dream and grey matter inhabiting parasite later, and Ray soon finds himself at the mercies of a shadowy figure and his cadre of dundridges built like slabs of meat, running from the punishment for a crime he’s pretty positive he didn’t commit. But in a world so crazy-go-nuts as his, who can really say for sure?

Once I got my hands on this title, a single word came to mind: Oddworld. The game’s dark, gritty overtones, coupled with the whimsical, highly detailed character designs, and the more-puzzler-than-platformer gameplay make this a shoe-in comparison, and there are no better comparisons whilst discussing puzzle/platformers. You are tasked with simply making your way in the face of rampant effrontery, be it a day trip over to your girlfriend’s psychiatrist (a much needed profession in this universe, for certain), lazily exploring your subconscious in a dream world, or running for your life from the previously mentioned dundridges. To do so, however, will mean the employment of certain abilities you’ve gained from Ted. The guy living in your brain.

Ted lends you powers in the form of telekinesis and telepathy, and traversal mostly requires the reading of people’s minds in order to find out what they want, and then bringing them that very item in order to solve their problems, eliciting favorable results for yourself. One of the very first issues involves a cabbie about to hang himself. You see, his girl left him for a Maffia Don with impeccably maintained choppers (she has an unreasonable strong attraction to teeth… uh, OK, sure). He won’t consider ending his attempts at suicide until he’s got his girl back, which means you’ve got to improve his dental hygene in a hurry. Most of this information you receive through mindreading, and then, after tinkering with a cavalcade of hilarious and seemingly unrelated events, you save the cab driver, and he agrees to take you home.

Yes, there is jumping involved, but the real meat of the game is found in the character interactions. It makes the story a part of the gameplay, and intelligently so.

The aesthetic is a lot like Little Big Planet meets Oddworld. The world is constructed from paper, cardboard, and stickers, and it’s used to create wonderful effects. Instead of entering buildings, you simply peel away the facade and observe those who dwell within from the street. The checkpoint system even takes advantage of the aesthetic by redrawing Ray, and cutting him out of construction paper stock. It’s quirky and charming, but not exactly new. The actual detail appllied to the set pieces and characters is wonderful. It contains, completely, both the whimsy and the gritty bleakness of the setting. You can tell these people have oddly difficult lives, and you can tell that crime is a bit rampant, but that it’s also business as usual, just by looking at the character designs.

And the levels are just as twisted as the atmosphere. Roads that turn back around on themselves, and then abruptly stop. Backgrounds, mid-grounds, and foregrounds all layered chaotically, but in a way that makes sense. It’s Cool World all over again, baby (minus all the teeth… well, there’re teeth, but it’s… ah, never mind), and I wouldn’t at all be surprised if the team at Zoink! drew inspiration from it. I would often gaze off into the busyness of it, just to see what details I could glimpse.

The soundtrack is remarkable. There’s the opening theme – Kenny Rodgers & The First Edition’s ‘Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In) – which was used in the trailer, and is one of the greatest classic rock songs of all time; and the diversity of all of the arranged pieces for each level run the gamut from zydeco to elevator music. All of the tunes are appropriate for their particular stage, as reflected in the details of each level, and this only serves to heighten your awareness the palpable, oddball noir elements of the universe the team at Zoink has built.

Unfortunately, it’s not all rainbows and sunshine. The controls are floaty, especially with regard to movement. I’ve said this before in other reviews, but platformers sink or swim based solely on control. Walking is a touch less responsive than it should be, and jumps are preceded by a small delay after pressing the button. It isn’t enough to completely deep six the experience, but it does require some getting used to, and frequent readjustment throughout the experience. Try stickers until one works, And, finally, the game doesn’t have trophy support. This isn’t something I would ever dock points for, but I tend to find it a bit disappointing when trophy/achievement support goes overlooked.

Verdict: 7.5/10 (+Good) – From the same team that brought us the Kore Gang; you’ll come for the gorgeous artwork, and stay for the crazy character interactions. When all is said and done, it’s a story we’ve all heard before in a wide variety of media (inFAMOUS, Prototype, Super 8, etc.), but the dark charm of the characters and their hilarious relationships are what catapult this PSN exclusive to high heights, held back only by the flighty controls, and sometimes obtuse puzzles.

Rogue was one of the most important video games ever created. It popularized dungeon crawling as a video game trope, and influenced games the likes of Hack, NetHack, Diablo, Champions of Norrath, Baldur’s Gate, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, Torchlight, D&D: Heroes/Daggerdale, and virtually every other game in the Action sub-genre we’ve come to know (and love) as Hack n’ Slash. Make no mistake, Rogue is as important as games get.

Rogue was also a bastard of a video game. Created by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman circa 1980 for Unix based systems, and loosely based on the fantasy settings of table-top Dungeons & Dragons, it generated dungeons procedurally, was very difficult, and instituted permanent death. You didn’t play Rogue to beat it; you played it to see how far you could get before dying and being forced to start over. Bragging rights were the spoils, and only the most devoted, and above all else LUCKY players earned them. The ‘Roguelike’ genre was born out of these principles, and remained niche in most markets, but it did find success… in Japan.

In the recent past, however, the genre has been pushing out of the Land of the Rising Sun, and has made strident in-roads here, in North America, flourishing. As a result, in addition to a pointed interest in their development (Dungeons of Dredmor, FTL: Faster Than Light, Don’t Starve, Sword of the Stars, etc.), the importation of these games is only natural. Guided Fate Paradox is one of these imports, and it stands as an excellent example of the genre’s long established tenants, as well as a perfect example of the NIS story telling conventions we’ve come to expect from the humorous developer.

You are Renya. A typical 17 year old high school student. His concerns are focused where you’d expect them to be: young love, good grades, and just skirting by socially because he’s a bit awkward (who wasn’t at that age, amiright?). He’s never been all that lucky. Not that he’s necessarily unlucky, he’s just never won a prize at raffle, or scored the winning ticket for a lottery. So, it comes as a surprise to him when, after a trip to the local store secures him a raffle ticket for a lucky drawing, he wins. And big. You see, Lilliel, the girl running the raffle, isn’t human. She’s an angel. And the prize she’s looking to give away? An ascension to Godhood. That’s with a capital “G,” as in “the One and only.” Once you pull the winning golden ball out of the tumbler, she spirits you away to Celestia (yep, it’s THAT Celestia!) so you can meet your heavenly host (all of who have oddly Japanese sounding names), ascend the throne, and take your place as chief among them.

As it turns out, God has a 24/7 job requiring you to listen to, and then grant the wishes of all of creation, for the benefit of their happyness. Easy, right? I mean, you’re God. Just wave your hand, expending an infinitesimally small amount of your limitless power, and grant them all at once. And all before breakfast! Not so fast. You’re a novice God, after all, and you don’t really know what the Hell (PUNS!!!) you’re doing. On top of that, granting these wishes could have severely negative consequences (like the irrevocable re-writing of the most famous princess story the world has ever seen, Cinderella). You have to be measured with your wish-granting dispensations. Then there’s the bit about you having to be inside the Fate Revolution Circuit in order to witness the wish in the first place, and effect change. The Circuit is a huge device that actually creates a duplicate, or Copy World, of actual reality, or Original World. Changing things in the Copy World will change them in the real world, because “as above, so below,” and all that. So, you can only grant these wishes one at a time, and only as quickly as you’re able to individually resolve them… which isn’t too quick, considering Fate and the Status Quo seem to want to stop you by putting Aberrations in your way: puppy-dog ninjas tossing kunai, liches, zombies, bats, and a whole host of other oddball enemies. They’re a lot like the demons in Disgaea, but Celestia’ized.

But that’s OK, because not only do you have the assistance of your very own personal angel attendant in Lilliel (and others), you’ll also have a world of items at your disposal that grant stat boosts and, more importantly, bestow special abilities with which to dispatch your enemies. These stat boosts aren’t static, as you can take any item that’s achieved a “Divine Burst (Note: items gain levels as you defeat monsters, but they can only gain one level, or Divine Burst, at a time; meaning once you gain that level, you must upgrade the item at the blacksmith to clear experience, level it back up to one, and increase its base stat boosts)” and upgrade it. A side effect of Bursting an item is that it gives you a token to spend on the Divinigram for Body Modification.

Taking a queue from the License Grid of Final Fantasy XII, the Divinigram in Guided Fate Paradox allows you to purchase upgrades with the tokens you’ve earned by placing stat boosting tiles on a table. These tokens are stat specific dependent on the type of item you burst – head items provide HIT (which influences the likelyhood of hitting your enemy), arms give STR (damage), legs are DEF (damage absorption), and misc. items grant SPEED (which influences your dodge rate, and critical hit chance) – and placing the tiles on the grid can provide other benefits, such as granting an entire category of weapons (sword, axes, etc.) a special function.

Going to the blacksmith and bursting items to spend tokens on the Divinigram is very important, as you always begin a new dungeon at level one. That’s right, every time you leave a dungeon, you lose all accumulated levels. Period. This adds incredible difficulty later in the game, when your enemies are much higher level than you, and it places incredible importance on your items and body modifications. The game does keep track of the total amount of levels you earn, and it provides bonuses via the Divinigram, increasing the potential of your tokens (at the start, tokens only give you a +1, but with a solid amount of total levels, you can boost that bonus significantly), and all of the bonuses placed in the Divinigram affect not only your base level one stats, but they also influence how big of a boost you get at level up; meaning all of the systems work in tandem to provide you with the power you’ll need to win. Which is a good thing for everyone, because not only do you not want to die, but your angel companions have an ulterior motive that depends on you becoming stronger, and it would appear as the the lowly denizens of the Netherworld (yep, it’s THAT Netherworld!) are up to no good (Dun, dun, DUUUUUUUUUUUUNN!!!).

A large part of this ‘becoming stronger’ theme is not dying. Death will destroy all of your items (except the ones you place in storage). You just lost all of your good stuff! Now, you’re starting from level one with more-than-likely completely underpowered gear. Thank God… erm… YOU that you get to keep your body modifications. Small consolation, but I’ll take what I can get. This simple item destruction mechanic places great stress on not dying, while it forces planning for your inevitable demise by storing up (preferably semi-leveled) gear to pad the soul-rending disappointment it brings. And falling to an opponent (or traps) isn’t the only way to die…

You can also run out of energy. Everything you do costs energy. Every time you move, or use an item, or swing a weapon, there’s a clock ticking down the seconds of your life. You can replenish this energy with food you find throughout the dungeons or purchase at the general store, but if you deplete the meter entirely, it’s your health that begins to tick down to zero. And when that happens, it’s good bye, baby.

Combat is handled how I expect a Roguelike to handle it: via a move-for-move turn based system. Every time you perform a single action, be it walking into the next grid-space or punching something in the face, every enemy on the map, even the ones you can’t see… oh, I didn’t mention that? Your field of vision is limited to what’s in front of you, so GOOD LUCK… anyway, every enemy on the map gets to perform an action, too. It’s a tit-for-tat system that serves this genre faithfully, and I’d have it no other way. It makes combat intense, and forces you to count health points while planning several turns ahead to make sure you don’t lose all your stuff.

If it sounds a lot like I’ve described the PSP outting Z.H.P. Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman, it’s because this is the spiritual successor. From the tokusatsu (Sentai/Power Rangers) influences, to the system mechanics, Guided Fate Paradox emulates Z.H.P. to great ends.

Finally, Guided Fate Paradox is gorgeous in that familiar Nippon Ichi, hi-res sprite kind of way. The character designs aren’t too crazy over-the-top, but they’re clean, distinct, and drip with personality. Besides, they make up for the lack of crazy through the display of your equipment while in the Fate Revolution Circuit. Renya can have equipped, all at the same time, car pants (pants that make the bottom half of your body look like a car), bat wings, a horse mask, an evil-eye mummy-wrapped arm, and a boxing glove. Each item has a unique look, and it’s worth equipping everything at least once not only to see what it can do, but to see what it looks like, too!

The music is equally as impressive, and the voice acting (with the exception of the zombie in the second act… good LORD is it freaking bad… like, “grating on your spine with a wood file” bad) is very well done.

Verdict: 8.5 (+Good) – Though the narrative is quirky and employs the typical NIS irreverence via sexy-talk and nonsense, it’s still able to effectively and poignantly question conventional storytelling by juxtaposing tropes against the morality of this common era. The game systems are all right at home in a Roguelike outting, and the call-backs to Z.H.P. Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman make this spiritual successor one to savor.

I woke up on Thursday morning with an appointment to keep. An appointment requiring the procurement of delicious pastries from a well known establishment that made their reputation on cream puffs. After picking up the puffs and driving an hour from Los Angeles to Santa Ana, I arrived at the offices of NIS America. David Alonzo, my contact within the company, had invited me by to take an interview about a game I am extremely interested in, and you should be too: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc.

As I entered the office, I was greeted by a particularly large, stuffed Prinny, and and a smile and a wave from everyone within view. A happier bunch there never was, I though to myself. David saw the package I’d brought, having recognized it from a previous conversation, and invited me in for the tour. The NIS offices aren’t large and grandiose, but they are very open, and extremely warm and friendly. Looking out over the sea of cubes, I could see all of the nick-knacks and artwork typical of this sort of setting. After relieving me of the pastries, and introducing me to Phoenix Spaulding, Editor at NIS, and the man with who I’d be speaking about the game, he showed us into an empty conference room, and we began.

James Bacon: Could you start by telling us a bit about the game, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc?

Phoenix Spaulding: It’s a PSVita game that was originally a PSP game released in Japan a couple of years ago – which then got a sequel – and we’re releasing the original here. Story-wise, the basic idea is that it’s a murder mystery game. There’s a lot of investigating, and a lot of searching around. The story is that you play Makoto Naede, and you’re a high school student just about to enter this very prestigious school called Hope’s Peak Academy. This school is very famous across the country [ed.: Japan] for being very… well, if you go to this school and graduate, you’re set for life. The government, and all of these prestigious companies all look for people graduating from this school – so it’s basically a ticket for a free ride for the rest of your life. Usually, they only want people at the top of their field: there’s the ultimate swimmer, the ultimate write, all of these ultimate students; but as Makoto, you have no talent. You’re just this very average kid. But you happen to win this lottery, and get invited to attend this school.

The lovely, and talented Phoenix Spaulding.

JB: So he’s the ultimate lucky person…

PS: Yes! Yes! As you find out, throughout the course of the game, Makoto’s ultimate ability is that he’s very lucky, and that plays in from the beginning. Unfortunately, what happens, is that the first day you go to start school, you walk into the school, all of a sudden you start feeling dizzy, you go unconcious, and when you wake up you find out you’re stuck in this place. All the windows have been barred, all the doors have been covered over with metal sheets… there’s no escape. After you wake up, and as you explore, you find the other new students who started today, and you find out the same thing happened to all of them. So there’s fifteen students stuck in this school, they don’t know what happened. They all came expecting to start school life, and instead they find themselves trapped. Before too long you’re introduced to the game’s antagonist, Monokuma, who’s this psychotic robot bear, and he informs you that the only way for anyone to escape is to murder a fellow student and get away with it. At that point, the game becomes a kill-or-be-killed environment where either you have to choose to live this life of solitude with just these 14 other people for the rest of your lives, or if you want to get out, you gotta kill someone and get away with it… but you’re told that if you do kill someone and aren’t discovered, everyone else in the school is going to die. So you aren’t just murdering one person, you’re sacrificing the lives of all 14 other students so that you alone can go free. Now, and this is a bit of a spoiler, but not really, as Makoto, you’re not looking to commit murder. It sort of becomes your job to, as these murders happen one by one, investigate them, find out what happened. Who did what, who was where, who had the most to gain, etc., etc.

JB: So, it sounds like it sort of plays out like the Phoenix Wright series.

PS: Yeah! It’s similar to Phoenix Wright in terms of the investigation segments, where you’re going around the school after a murder’s taken place and you’re looking for clues, and then it’ll move into the class trial segment, where you’re taking that information that you’ve found and you’re trying to use it to find out who the murderer was. I will say that Danganronpa is a little more active in some ways, though. Once you get into the class trial segment, there’s a number of mini-games that, rather than just always looking for that clue, and information, there’s also some timing elements, some visual cue elements; so there’s a little bit more variety. It’s still primarily searching and information gathering, but there’s a little bit of extra interactivity on top.

JB: Oh! OK! While I was watching the series [ed.: Danganronpa: The Animation], and I’m FAR from finishing it, but it seemed like the show was developed specifically with a video game translation in mind, or if even the game and anime were developed in tandem.

PS: Actually, after the game became popular, they made an anime series out of it. The series, actually, relies on the popularity of the game. Kind of like “Hey, you remember this really successful game everyone liked? Here’s a TV show that’s based on it!”

JB: AH! I understand! I didn’t know the game came first! Sometimes in the series, the episodes are introduced with what appears to be a rhythm game, which I thought was odd, but now it makes complete sense.

PS: Yeah! If you’re planning on playing the game, avoid the anime at all costs. It’s a play-by-play of the game, from start to finish. It’ll spoil everything. Well, the game does have more time to go into character development, and explore the murders and each motive more than the show, because it only runs twelve or thirteen episodes, but it hits all the major revelations. I’m not saying the game is ‘better,’ just that it has more time to explore and explain. But, they pulled a lot of that sort of thing – the visual ques, and ‘video game’ aesthetic – stylistically, from the game. Like during the trial, even when you’re just learning information, it’s all timing based. Characters are talking, their text is appearing on screen, and you only have a certain amount of time to look at it, decide if it’s important, decide if you need to call someone out on something that they said; and if you miss it, you have to go back through their dialogue again, all while a timer ticks down. If you get wrong answers, you’re losing life, if you take too long to decide which piece of evidence is important you can lose life, or the trial can end. So, there’s definitely a feeling of tense pressure. In terms of tone, or feel, however, it feels a bit more something like Virtue’s Last Reward, or 999, and that’s because it’s actually developed by the same company.

JB: Neal really likes… well, I don’t know if he likes it, but I notice he’s been playing Virtue’s Last Reward a lot recently.

PS: It has that same sort of dark, intense pressure with the suspicion, and paranoia… it’s a much more dark game than something like a Phoenix Wright in terms of style and content. Also, in addition to the mainline investigations and murders, there’s a similar system to Persona 4’s system link mechanic. You actually get ‘Free Time’ – like a free period at the end of each day – that you can use to go spend more time with each character and sort of learn more about them, and become closer to them.

JB: Is that optional?

PS: It is. During the specific segments when you have to go and do this, you can either go talk to someone, or you can just go to sleep to start the new day. So, if for some reason you don’t want to interact with other people…

JB: Then why are you even playing this game?

PS: (Laughter) Yeah. But, if you prefer, you can just skip it.

JB: So, it’s sort of like Phoenix Wright meets a visual novel? Phoenix Wright already kind of pulls you through the story by your nose… which is OK, I guess. I mean, you get a hold of all the major plot points, but this, Danganronpa, seems more interactive, and I have more choice. I can talk to who I want to talk to, or I can not talk to anyone, and completely avoid the visual novel aspects, if that doesn’t particularly appeal to me.

PS: Exactly. You can just follow the core plot; but if you do talk to people, you’ll unlock skills that you can use during the trial, you’ll unlock stat boosts and things like that. So, it is in your interest gameplay-wise AND story-wise – if you want to see more and be able to do more – to talk to these people. But, if you decide you don’t like any of these people, you can just go to sleep and get on with the story.

JB: And this is a PS Vita release. What kind of launch window are you looking at? And was it your choice to localize this, or was it handed down from on high?

PS: It’s coming early next year, 2014. The developer in Japan is Spike Chunsoft, and we’ve never worked with them before. This is sort of our first foray. They’re an independent developer, and as a publisher we have a lot of freedom to pursue projects that we like, so this is something we’ve been working on. We’ve always been really interested in the games that they make, and so we just kind of lucked into an opportunity to do this. I won’t call it a passion project, because that sometimes implies there aren’t a lot of people interested, just a few people pushing to get the job done for personal interest reasons, and this game does have a lot of appeal, but there are a lot of people here in the office who were familiar with the PSP games that really like the style and the tone of this property.

JB: If I can interrupt you for a moment, I think ‘passion project’ is pretty appropriate where NIS America is concerned. I’ve always associated you guys with passion, and especially now that I see just how small your office is, and just how many people you have on your team. You’re always turning out niche anime and video games, and you consistently do a really solid job.

PS: Well, thank you. We’re lucky enough to have people here that… if we’re working on a project, it’s usually because there was someone here that was passionate enough about it to go for it, and try to get it for us. You know? Our whole anime side-business, which has become a core part of our entire business, took place because we had someone here who had some contacts and had some interest in exploring that, and we just tried a couple of things in the beginning, but that snowballed into something that’s been really successful for us. But it starts with someone having that passion and that interest.

JB: Well, as I said, I definitely feel like the passion you have as a group of like-minded people shows all over the games and anime you bring to the States. To get back on topic, sort of, when I interview, I usually try to ask this same question of everyone. Is there a question you haven’t been asked that you’d really like to answer, or maybe a feature you’d like to discuss you haven’t yet been given the opportunity to discuss?

PS: Hmmm… What I’ll say, and I have mentioned this in other places before, but I think a lot of people have been describing this as a straight-up visual novel, and it’s something that’s tough, because there’s a certain expectation with visual novels where it’s literally just wordswordswordswordswords with some pictures, and then maybe, like, “Do you like this girl, or this girl?” and then it moves on to the next chapter or segment. With Danganronpa, I hope people get a sense that there’s a lot more to this than just the story. The story is the main thing, and there’s a LOT of reading, especially when you are investigating a murder, or even before the murder happens… there’s a lot of walking around around the school, talking to other characters, getting to know people; but there is a lot of interaction, and you’re going to be making a lot of decisions as the player. You’re going to have to use your own intuition to know where to go, what clues you’re looking for, which clues are important; then when you progress throughout the trial, your timing is going to be challenged, your coordination is going to be challenged, just like any other game. You’re going to be using powers and special skills, moving through dialogue while trying to figure out which piece of the puzzle fits in which spot… So, it’s a lot more active, and interactive than I think the term ‘visual novel’ means to a lot of people.

JB: Well, I think that’s fairly obvious, even with the preparation I did for this interview with watching the anime – and I didn’t know the game came first, so maybe that’s why it’s obvious – but it seemed to me, without having any idea what the game actually played like, it kind of has to be more interactive, because there’s just so much to it. I expected a sort of visual novel aspect to it, but even Phoenix Wright has that, and much more prevalent, and no one refers to that series as a visual novel.

PS: Yeah, exactly. I liken it to some of the old point-and-click adventures. It isn’t nearly as difficult as any of those, but a huge aspect of those games is going around the world talking to people, and being overloaded with all of this information, but it’s still up to you to proceed; it’s still up to you, the player, to find those key pieces and key elements that you need to progress. Then you get to a certain point where all of the elements come together, and without your comprehension and understand, the story won’t progress. You have to actively come to your own conclusion, and figure out what happened. I think some people see the words ‘visual novel,’ and it turns them away… it’s definitely story heavy, and if you’re not looking to read a bunch of text, or getting to know the cast of characters really well, then this game might not be for you, but there is definitely more to it than that. It’s a really good mix of story and gameplay. And if you don’t want to talk to people, just go to sleep.

JB & PS: (Laughter)

JB: But that’s perfect, because for the people who don’t want that portion of the game, they can skip it, outright.

PS: Exactly. It’s really accessible, and really fun, and it’s interesting to interact with the people and the world. If you’re familiar with, like I said, VLR, or 999, if you like that style of story, very mysterious but with very strong characters, you’ll like Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. It’s very Japanese, it’s really sleek, the soundtrack is really cool, for me, it feels like they took elements from Persona 4, Phoenix Wright, and VLR/999 and mashed it all together, and came up with something that feels really interesting, and really unique. We’re usually really good about knowing our audience, but this is not an established brand here. The gameplay isn’t established, and the platform isn’t super established, but it’s a really cool game, and I hope people out there give it a chance that maybe aren’t familiar with this sort of thing. I think a lot of people will be pleasantly surprised.

JB: Well, I’m certainly on board.

With success, perhaps we’ll be seeing the second game in the series Stateside, as well… but I’m probably getting ahead of things.

Thank you to both David Alonzo, for setting up the interview, and Phoenix Spaulding, for taking the time out of his schedule to give the interview. Thank you to everyone at NIS America for welcoming me into your workspace, and especially those who complemented me on my awesome t-shirt.

Stay tuned for a preview of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc for the PS Vita.